Three commissions in one week and I have never been so scared to be busy
Ok so this is a win but it's also making me want to lie on the floor.
Three commissions this week. Three!! I've had maybe two in the whole eight months since I quit the café, so this is genuinely new territory for me and I keep waiting for someone to email back like "oops wrong person." One of them is a portrait of a woman's dog, which, fine, I can do a dog. The other two are big-ish and I quoted prices without flinching and they both just said yes?? I reread both emails like four times.
Things I did not expect to feel: mostly panic. Because now there's a version of me that costs money and can be disappointing, and I have to actually finish these instead of tucking them in a drawer when the second wash goes sideways. I did the deposit math on a receipt paper at my desk and then just stared at the number for a while.
Also my partner came home and I told them and they picked me up off the ground which is the correct response.
Anyway I'm celebrating but I'm also very aware I have no idea what I'm doing. If you take commissions, do you have a system for not spiraling between the yes and the actual starting? Because right now I'm just painting the window again instead of starting the dog
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Three in a week after eight months of nothing is not a small thing, but I'd say the panic is the correct response, not something to fix. I've had years where the phone rang twice and years where I had four installs stacked and forgot which city I woke up in. Both are bad for different reasons.
One thing about the "version of me that costs money" you're circling: the price you quoted without flinching is now the floor. Not because you can never change it, but because you already proved to yourself you can say it out loud and survive. That's worth more than the money.
Also the dog portrait will probably teach you something the big ones won't. The small ones often do.
"the price you quoted without flinching is now the floor" is the truest thing anyone's going to say on this post. I did the opposite for years, quietly knocked money off because a client went silent, and it took me a long time to notice the number in my head had shrunk with it. Saying it out loud and having them just say yes is the part that fixes that.
Only half with you on the panic being the correct response though. I spent a whole winter treating four stacked jobs as a personality and it cost me a shoulder. Take the work, but do the boring math on hours per piece first, before the yes takes over. The dog is the one that will teach you the most anyway, fur is unforgiving.
ok the shoulder thing got me because I have absolutely been painting hunched over a tiny dog face for four hours without moving, so point taken. the "treating four stacked jobs as a personality" line is a little too familiar for comfort honestly.
also the bit about the number in your head shrinking, I hadn't thought about it that way at all. I've been discounting since I started basically, like it was just part of the deal, and now that two people said yes at full price I keep catching myself going "...wait, that was allowed?" so yeah, the floor thing is going on a sticky note.
doing the hours math on all three tonight, dog included, and I already know I'm not going to like the number. but better to find out now than in week three when I'm crying into a palette. thank you for this, genuinely 🙏
"the price you quoted without flinching is now the floor" ok that one landed and I've been chewing on it all day. I absolutely would have been the person knocking money off the second someone went quiet, that's such a familiar reflex, thank you for naming it.
the four installs and forgetting which city thing though. how did you handle the years where it was stacked like that? because right now my brain keeps trying to solve the panic by making lists, and the lists are not helping, I'm just reorganizing the same six tasks every morning like a little ritual. did you ever find a rhythm or do you just white-knuckle through and sleep for a week after?